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Sunday, 23 September 2007

Prompted by the much belaboured news of the 2 lesbians in Australia who had IVF and are now suing because they only wanted one kid and are about to get 2.

I’m not going to rant about their foolishness. Their foolishness and general wrongness is evident to anyone with enough understanding to be able to read the English language. Ranting about their foolishness is redundant at this point.

What isn’t redundant is my anger at all those using this as an opportunity to lash out at lesbians and homosexuals in general.

These women are ridiculous wastes of skin because of ridiculous actions. The fact they are lesbians is IRRELEVANT. Trying to draw any larger conclusions about lesbians or lesbian parents from this is not only deeply ignorant on a stunning scale but is also ridiculously homophobic.

And it’s part of an ongoing rant for me. One of the subtler but more pervasive forms of prejudice that clings on is to judge every member of a minority group because of the bad actions of a few - or even on the bad actions of a single person.

It is more than a little tiresome to be judged on the actions of a complete stranger, sometimes in an entirely different country. One lesbian couple turn out to have all the parenting skills of a stunned goldfish and suddenly it's reason to comment on the parenting skill of all lesbians? If we judged all heterosexuals by such standards we would recognise how utterly ridiculous it is. Any heterosexuals want assumptions made of THEIR parenting based on some of the many vile things heterosexual parents have done in the past? No, it’s not only unjust and unfair but it’s patently ludicrous!

It annoys me that I feel the need to display nothing but impeccable behaviour at all times because if I mess up I will be “letting the side down.” Because if I snap tomorrow and go on a mad axe murdering spree of my clients you can just bet at least one of the hate groups is going to present my sexuality as the reason - and that’s assuming the major media itself doesn’t buy into it, or at least emphasise my sexuality unduly in the rampage. Even more annoying is the mindset encourages me to judge my fellow homosexuals and be angry at them if they are too flamboyant or extroverted etc. I look at some of the wilder gay pride parades or drag reviews and am irritated - NOT because I disapprove of what is happening (pride parades alone are wonderful for us in so many ways) but because there are no small number of straight people out there who will make judgements and assumptions about me based on what they’ve seen complete strangers do.

All lesbians, in fact, all homosexuals, are not responsible for or represented by these two ignorant muppets. We do not control them. We are not controlled by them. Their actions do not speak for us, do not represent us and are not indicative of our attitudes, beliefs or abilities. There are fools everywhere, in every group and from every segment of every society.

We are homosexual. We are people, like anyone else. We aren’t perfect. We do make mistakes. Some of us do foolish, even criminal and evil things. That doesn’t mean we all do. That doesn’t mean they should be used as a weapon against us or considered a spokesperson or general representation of us. It is sad and insulting that I feel the need to express this, but I feel it nevertheless. We should not all have to be angels to avoid being cast as devils.